


honor

by hydrospanners



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Drabble, Gen, please protect my gentle knife son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 03:13:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14227896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrospanners/pseuds/hydrospanners
Summary: Cole would never accept anything like payment for all the invisible care he's given to the Inquisition, so the Inquisitor finds another way to honor his quiet contributions.





	honor

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr. Written for Fictober 2017.

The flowers were in full bloom and the sweet scent of spring was heavy on the air. Pollen clung to canvas tents and linen shirts. It mixed with rainwater collected on every roof and cart and barrel to form a layer of scum that was both disgusting and a refreshing change of pace from the grey, barren winter.

It was a perfect fucking day.

The refugee camp-–if you could still call it that–-was vibrant and alive, every wash woman and errand boy falling over themselves to toss a smile or a bow the Inquisitor’s way as she passed through their little community.

There was a small crowd gathered at the edge of the ropes surrounding the new tower. She often found people here, heads bent together, whispering guesses about what the new building could be, about when they would be told.

Niria swept past them, leaping over the rope barricade while Cole slipped beneath it. The crowd grew behind them, and she couldn’t help noticing that some of their eyes caught on her companion. Never for long, but long enough to show he wasn’t invisible. Not anymore.

He hesitated just outside the door.

“What is it?”

Cole looked dubiously at the stonework tower and the shadowed, circular room within. “It’s… cold,” he said.

“Yeah. Not great for the symbolism is it?”

“The cold is a symbol?”

“No,” Ria said. “The tower is.” She glanced up at the cloudless blue sky and the sun almost directly overhead. “Now come inside or you’ll miss it.”

He still seemed hesitant, but Cole had never not followed her before, and it didn’t seem like today was a day for starting new habits.

Once they were both inside, Niria shut the door behind them. It was dark inside, and she could hear the little hitch in Cole’s breathing. She smiled in spite of herself; those little affectations were coming easier every day.

She reached back and laid a hand on Cole’s shoulder, urging him gently forward. “Trust me, Cole. This isn’t going to hurt.”

In the silence, she could almost feel him trying to read her. It was never easy for him before, with the anchor and her mental acrobatics, but she didn’t think he could do it at all now. His newfound humanity expanded his abilities in so many ways, but it hadn’t come without a price. Nothing did.

“Now close your eyes,” Niria said.

“I don’t need my eyes to see.”

“Then just let me pretend you do, okay? I’ve been waiting for this all week.”

Cole closed his eyes obligingly, but Ria still shoved his hat down over his face, just to be sure. He mumbled something, but the fabric of his brim swallowed the words.

Then the light slanted in. Beams of it cascaded down from the open windows high above, bouncing off the carefully arranged mirrors until the whole room was glowing with soft, golden sunshine. Until the whole place looked like the Maker’s larder.

Niria pulled back the brim of Cole’s hat. “Open your eyes.”

His quick eyes danced around the room, taking in every detail almost at once. They froze on the statue.

It stood precisely in the center of the circular chamber, catching the noonday sun at just the right angle. Its gilded surface seemed to glow. With divine light if you believed in that sort of thing, or maybe with the warmth of Cole’s spirit. Or maybe just the power of Dagna’s careful calculations and Leliana’s eye for lighting.

It was a statue of food. Stacks and stacks of it. Cheese and meat and bread and fruit and cakes and pies and nuts. All of it heaped up in a precarious pyramid, just short of six feet high, same as Cole. And between the layers and layers of food, there were other things. Things Cole had brought to people when they needed them most. Things he had taken. Immortal representations of all the little ways Cole had cared for the people of the Inquisition.

She had wondered if making a statue of his face might not have been better, but as she watched him look the statue over, Niria knew she had made the right choice.

“He was hungry, hollow, hopeless…” Cole said. He approached the statue carefully, circling it, his eye catching on every detail, finding every hidden meaning. “You gave him food.”

“He’ll never be hungry again, Cole. And hopefully, neither will the Inquisition.” Ria smiled as she ran her fingers over one of the wooden shelves lining the walls. “This is a special larder. Dagna and the mages have been working on it all winter, weaving in spells to keep it cold so the food lasts longer. So there’s fewer going without when the winter runs long or the harvest is light.”

Cole reached out, brushing the gilded statue with the pads of his fingers. He raised his face to the light streaming in through the windows and closed his eyes.

“I thought it would be a good way to honor him,” Ria said. “Him and everyone like him. And you, Cole. For all you do for us. What do you think?”

Cole smiled. “They won’t be forgotten again.”


End file.
